From the beginning of recorded history, workmen have devised tools to hold their work pieces steady to facilitate their work. The two tools best known for this are the sawhorse and the anvil. The instant invention pertains to improvements on the sawhorse.
The most important characteristics of the sawhorse are its strength (vertical and lateral) and its rigidity. In ages past strength and rigidity were achieved by fastening together massive pieces of lumber. And this was satisfactory for that age, since a carpenter may have worked for several years or even a lifetime on a single job site.
However, in the modern age the nature of a carpenter's (or other tradesman's) work has changed dramatically. Today, carpenters, remodelers, repairmen, and other tradesmen move frequently from one job to another—often spending less than a day on a job site. They still need sawhorses with strength and rigidity, but also require them to be portable.
Also, tradesmen working in multi-floor buildings, whether during construction or for repairs and remodeling, need to transport their tools from one floor to another, using either stairs or elevators. In either case, the need for portable sawhorses is evident.
The first component of portability is for the sawhorse to be lightweight.
The second component of portability is compactness. When a sawhorse can be folded, it becomes much more useful and much more valuable. The folded sawhorse passes easily though doorways and other narrow passages that greatly limit the use of non-folding sawhorses. Also, tradesmen need to optimize the use of space in their vans or trucks, and a folding sawhorse contributes to this.
Two other differences between the present age and ages past are the use of power tools—particularly the circular saw—and the use of sheet goods, such as plywood, OSB, MDF, plastics, etc. Today, workmen prefer to run their circular saws through the tops of the sawhorse as they cut sheet goods. It improves the quality of the work and increases the speed of work.
Another modern trend is the use of large quantities of granite, marble, and solid surface materials (e.g., Corian®) as counter tops. These structures must be given a final shaping at the job site to achieve precise fits. Having a strong, portable support structure close to the installation site is of vital importance, especially in new, high-rise construction.
Yet another difference between the present age and ages past is the DIY (Do-It-Yourself) trend. Today homeowners undertake many construction and home-repair tasks that were almost always performed by professionals just a few generations ago. So, the issue of compactness is of vital importance to homeowners, who must store the sawhorses in between uses.
In order for a sawhorse to be truly portable, it must be both lightweight and compact, two characteristics that are usually at variance with strength and stability. That is the challenge that this invention addresses.
There are several commercial solutions to sawhorse design. Typically, the top rail, which supports the workpiece, is an integral component of the sawhorse and vital to the structural soundness of the whole. One accidental pass with the circular saw can destroy the plastic, wooden, or sheet metal sawhorse. In sawhorses where the top rail is made of heavy steel or contains heavy steel components, running the circular saw into the top rail has been known to destroy the saw blade, destroy the saw, and even cause severe operator injury.
This design flaw was overcome by a solution known as the Shop Dog, which uses a disposable top rail. But the lumber used in the Shop Dog is 2×4, making it heavier than the present invention. The Shop Dog design typically includes components that are held together by nails or screws and glue, increasing weight and decreasing lateral strength, rigidity, and stability when compared to the present invention. The Shop Dog design incorporates a “trestle” design—a design in which the legs tilt inward at a 10° angle—in order to generate lateral stability. But that is not sufficient to achieve the levels of lateral strength and rigidity achieved by the present invention. The trestle design necessitates more complex cuts in the legs and stretchers. Also, it necessitates two different legs and two different stretchers. Because of the larger dimensions of the lumber, the Shop Dog is considerably heavier than the present invention. The Shop Dog design is too heavy, insufficiently rigid, too complex, and too expensive to be marketed successfully.
Other existing solutions attempt to increase portability by including a folding mechanism, but these solutions fail to meet the needs of the industry because they sacrifice strength and stability in order to gain portability.
Still other solutions attempt to improve storage efficiency by designing stackable sawhorses. However, these solutions are similarly unable to meet the needs of the industry because they sacrifice lateral stability in order to gain stackability, and their non-folding design renders them less portable and unsatisfactory for mobile tradesmen.
Still other solutions utilize fasteners alone to create vertical and lateral strength, but these fail to meet industry needs, because the fasteners loosen with use and the looseness weakens the sawhorse substantially.
Some currently available sawhorses attempt to increase strength by fabricating key components from heavy steel. This fails to meet industry needs, because it increases weight, and if a saw blade runs into the steel component, it can destroy the blade, destroy the saw, and cause severe physical injury to the operator.
Other attempts to use steel for folding sawhorses employ thin-gauge sheet metal. This does mitigate the increased weight associated with steel, but it creates a device that is too weak to support the typical workloads that workmen apply.
Another common attempt to satisfy industry needs is to manufacture folding sawhorses out of plastic. But plastic is not strong enough to support heavy weight, will shatter upon moderate impact, and will creep (sag) if it bears weight for long periods of time.
It would be desirable to have a sawhorse that possesses: 1) Vertical strength, 2) lateral strength, 3) rigidity, 4) impact resistance, 5) stability, 6) minimal weight, 7) the ability to fold into a compact size, 8) the ability to work in accord with today's modern power tools, 9) the ability to accommodate modern construction materials, and 10) characteristics that lend themselves to mass production so that consumers can afford to buy them. The instant invention addresses these issues.